


The Rat King

by CaliforniaStop



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: AU, High Chaos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 09:24:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3564509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaliforniaStop/pseuds/CaliforniaStop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teague Martin is the sole survivor of Kingsparrow Island. Emily Kaldwin is dead. Corvo Attano managed to escape. But Martin is a man who has an uncanny knack for turning unsavoury situations to his advantage…</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rat King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alter_cation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alter_cation/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Крысиный король](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5102243) by [Gianeya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gianeya/pseuds/Gianeya)



The sky was a lead-colored wall, cracked through with jagged flashes of lightning that illuminated the lighthouse against a circling wreath of thick black clouds. The wind that swirled around Kingsparrow Island was streaked heavily with icy needles of rain, and so loud that it drowned out the wailing sirens. The surrounding ocean was choppy, and thick foaming waves beat against the high cliffs that bore the fortress up. Through the thick pall of rain, Dunwall stood as a hazy smear of faint lines and even fainter lights, like a corpse that, in death, was beginning to fade away to nothing.

Teague Martin stood in the cold haven of his guard house and contemplated the hulking shape of the lighthouse and the surrounding scaffolding of stairs and balconies. The guard patrols had long since stopped making their rounds; they were most likely dead. The Warfare Overseers with whom he had surrounded himself with in those first few days of fighting were dead, too, but at least half a dozen more squads were on their way over from Dunwall to help root out both Pendleton and Havelock’s remaining forces and secure the island.

Martin smirked to himself. They had been such fools, his-co-conspirators, standing huddled together with him in the darkened pub. Whilst Havelock and Pendleton had pledged to one another, making their empty promises to buoy each other up in the days that followed the reveal of Emily Kaldwin, Martin had slunk off in the night to arrange for his loyal Overseers to move on Kingsparrow Island and eliminate any resistance, under the pretence of a coup to oust the mad Lord Regent and the corrupt Prime Minister.

And now, the payoff for his patience and his meticulous cunning. There was nothing left between Teague Martin and the lighthouse.  

When the squads finally arrived, they found Martin waiting for them on the beach to deliver his assessment: “The lighthouse has been silent for hours now, though I know that neither the Prime Minister nor the Lord Regent have taken a vessel and fled. I’ve observed a complete absence of patrols around the lighthouse in that same span of time.” He paused, looking at the bronze masks of his Overseers, glittering like gold in the lightning; four of them wore Holger’s device on their chests. “We must assume, too, that Corvo Attano has arrived. Last we knew, he was making his way from Dunwall to retrieve Emily Kaldwin. The man is mad, dangerous, and has been marked by the Outsider. Take every precaution. Stay close to the music boxes. Remember: the Empress is our priority.”

Damp sand crumbled underfoot as they marched towards the lighthouse. All of Sokolov’s devices were disabled, though the smell of ozone and the tickle of electric charges still lingered in the air. Rain drenched them, making their wool coats swell, but Martin relished the needling of half-frozen droplets on his bare face. When he gave the signal, the Overseers formed ranks and began the laborious cranking of their music boxes. The deep droning sound enveloped them, settling over them like a thick shroud. Perhaps it was simple exhaustion, but Martin was certain the devices were dulling his senses.

They found the bunkhouse Pendleton had holed up inside, at the foot of the lighthouse. His guards were dead, motionless and grey in sticky red pools, and the Wall of Light he had used to barricade himself inside was no longer functioning. Martin ordered his men to spread out and find the Prime Minister but, when he had ascended the last few steps that led to the top floor, which was cracked open as though by a bomb, he found Pendleton slumped against a wall, still and staring with sightless eyes. Blood drenched his waistcoat, Martin discovered, as he searched the body.

Martin recalled that shrill, taunting jeer from the window – _You couldn’t hit me if I was standing right next to you! –_ during their heated exchange across the main yard, only a few hours earlier. He smirked.

“Not so smug now, are you, blue-blooded prick,” Martin muttered, pinching Pendleton’s narrow chin between thumb and forefinger and lifting his grey, sallow face for inspection. Pendleton’s eyes, just visible beneath half-closed lids, were fogged with death. “I wish I could have watched the life seep out of you,” Martin hissed. “Watched you _beg_ ; watched you _cry_ like the weak little mongrel you were.”

The storm had only built to its intense crescendo by the time Martin and his contingent reached the final climb to the lighthouse. Rain slicked the metal staircases and walkways; the wind, wrapped tightly around the sweeping curves of the lighthouse, threatened to pluck Martin and his men from the connecting bridge and fling them into the abyss. A handful of dead Watchmen littered the base of the tower, their throats carved open. Martin studied the gaping black wounds with a curious eye. It was most certainly Corvo’s handiwork, efficient and merciless.

Only once, before climbing into the elevator and ascending into the heart of the lighthouse, did Martin dare to peer over the railing of a narrow balcony and stare into the churning black ocean. He felt, for a fraction of a second, the blackness staring right back at him.

They ascended in two groups. Inside, the lighthouse was surprisingly calm and Martin ordered the discordant grinding of the music boxes be switched off. Hiram Burrows stood, immortalized in bronze, in the centre of the entry chamber. The high glass ceiling rattled with each powerful gust of wind. There was no blood on the black and white tiles, which led Martin to believe that Havelock was still alive – but not for very much longer. He barely drew breath as he climbed the long, curved staircase, unholstering his pistol and readying it with a press of his thumb.

At a glance, the main floor of the lighthouse was empty. There was that wide table where they’d made all those elaborate plans in the first few hours of landing; maps, official testimonies, petitions from the parliament all littered the tabletop. Martin ordered his men to secure the floor, and they spread out, sabres drawn. Martin moved much more slowly, examining a half-full glass of Morley whiskey, an ashtray strewn with crumpled cigarette butts, Havelock’s desk. An audiograph player sat on the polished walnut and, beside that, Havelock’s log. Martin huffed a humourless sigh of laughter: the admiral had been keeping thorough records of _everything_. Just like Pendleton had done with his bloody memoirs. Their foolishness, and carelessness, could easily undo all that they had spent _months_ planning.

As if Martin needed any further convincing that they had to die.

He went to the closet where they had locked Emily Kaldwin. When they’d first arrived on Kingsparrow Island, she had howled and fought. Both Havelock and Martin had to wrestle her into the lighthouse, and then Martin had dragged her to the closet (unfurnished, but they’d promised her a bed and some books if she behaved) and sealed her inside. Now, it was empty. Her little bed was rumpled, but cold to the touch. Martin knelt and examined a dark spatter on the floor. Blood. _But_ , he concluded with a smirk, _not Emily’s_. He imagined Havelock going to the closet, knowing that Corvo was coming, and dragging Emily out. And Emily biting and scratching with all the ferocity of a feral alley cat.

“The Empress is not here,” Martin said. “ _Find her_.”

“High Overseer,” said one of the masked men with a low bow, “the lighthouse is empty. We have found nothing.”

Then, a great gust of wind swirled around the lighthouse and, somewhere on the upper level, an open door cracked hard against the wall. Havelock had gone outside – and higher still, to the observation platform at the top of the lighthouse. There was, Martin reasoned, nowhere else for him to go. He signalled for his men to begin the ascent.

Rain lashed at the great curving windows that sealed in the upper level of the lighthouse. It was silent, save for the crackling of a few fires, burning brightly in their hearths as though their light could drive away the storm. The maid who had stoked them was dead: Martin found her body outside, near the stairs that led up to the observation platform. She was cold, her limbs sprawled at grotesque angles her as though she were a puppet whose strings had been suddenly cut. She had bled out heavily; it mingled with the thick sheets of rainwater that pooled on the steel where she lay.

Martin knelt by her and studied her wounds. There was just a single ragged hole in her chest, delivered by a powerful pistol. His trailed his eyes up the winding staircase that clung, like a single black vine, to the outside of the lighthouse. Perhaps, like Callista, the maid had tried to save Emily and perhaps, like Callista, she had been punished for it. He made a show of praying over her, head bowed, one hand on her cold brow, before he straightened up. “We move forward,” he declared. “If the Empress has been taken upstairs, we _must_ save her. The Lord Regent is now in a desperate position and trapped rats will bite when they have nowhere to run.”

There was a single observation platform overlooking the stretch of sea that separated Dunwall and Kingsparrow Island. No railing secured it and it pitched and groaned beneath Martin’s feet. Standing at the far edge of the platform was a lone man, too slim to be Havelock.

It was Corvo, standing there like a spectre of death. If he knew Martin and the Overseers were there, he did not show it.

A flash of lightning split the sky; Corvo’s blade winked in his hand, long and thin enough to slip between a man’s ribs. There was no sign of Havelock. “Corvo,” Martin called over the rumbling thunder, “where is Emily?”

There was another white flash of lightning which bathed Corvo in a momentary halo. Rain slicked his mask and coat. His turned, his head tilted as though he hadn’t heard correctly. The thunder that followed made the platform tremble like a string pulled tensely to breaking point. Beneath them, the ocean churned.

“Corvo!” Martin called again, “ _where_ is Emily?” His free hand twitched at his side, ready to signal to his men to activate Holger’s devices.

An inaudible snatch of sound growled from behind Corvo’s mask. Martin dared to take a step forward; Corvo flicked his wrist, readying his blade with a chilling whisper of steel on steel. “What did you say?” Martin asked.

“He took her,” Corvo said, a little more loudly. His voice was like rust.

“Havelock?”

Corvo said nothing.

“ _Who_ took Emily?” Martin demanded.

“ _He_ did,” Corvo said simply. Then, the air around him shimmered, darkened. Martin felt as though he were being dragged into a cold vacuum. He raised his pistol, thumb pressed against the hammer, maw lined up directly with Corvo’s chest – with the collection of bone charms slung across his heart–

And then Corvo was gone.

Martin swore, rushed forward, felt his skin crawl and prickle as though he were standing near one of Sokolov’s devices. He listened for the sound of Corvo’s footsteps thundering on the metal stairs but there was only the wind, and the rain, and his own deep heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Faintly, above the salt of the ocean, he could smell burning whale fat.                                            

* * *

Havelock’s bloated body washed up on the beach days later, long after Kingsparrow had been secured by the Abbey’s men and Martin had returned to Dunwall to deliver the news of the ‘coup’ to its citizens. The only wounds on the admiral’s body were the ragged tears of hagfish teeth, so it was assumed that he’d fallen from the platform and into the ocean below. Fallen, or jumped.

Emily Kaldwin remained missing.

Martin sealed himself inside his office, pacing back and forth like an anxious hound. He had never factored a missing – possibly _dead_ – young Empress into his planning. Dunwall was in mourning and Martin could offer them no answers. He had none himself. What exactly had Corvo meant when they had stood together on that platform, at the centre of the storm?

 _Corvo_. Martin silently cursed the Lord Protector. It had been dangerous, keeping him alive for so long. Only in hindsight did Martin realize that there had been no need for Corvo beyond retrieving High Overseer Campbell’s journal. Inside that little black book was everything the Loyalists had needed to continue: proof of the Pendleton twins’ guilt, the location of Emily Kaldwin, evidence linking Hiram Burrows to the murder of the Empress… After Corvo had brought the journal to Martin, he should have been taken to the yard behind the Hound Pits Pub and disposed of.

Martin would have gladly done the honours himself.

He shook those dark thoughts away. It was all too late for silly, pointless retrospection. The High Overseer had to look forward, had to reassess his standing, had to decide how he would play the disappearance of the young Empress to his advantage.

_He took her._

In his mind’s eyes, he saw the black ocean, glimmering like jet in the lightning; swirling, churning, threatening to swallow them all up.

And then, Martin realized what Corvo had meant.

* * *

Martin reached for his glass of wine and took a long, indulgent sip. The wine slid towards the back of his throat with long, melting fingers; it was heady and rich and warmed his chest in a slow, tingling spread. With a measured flick of his wrist, he swirled the glass and watched as the wine sparkled like a precious blood-colored gem.

He set the wine aside and angled the microphone towards his lips. The speech he had prepared over many sleepless nights was ready to be broadcast to the entire city from the Office of the Overseer. Martin did not need to look at the handwritten pages under his drumming fingers; he had committed the it all to memory. It made for a more genuine delivery.

“Citizens of Dunwall,” he said, “this is High Overseer Teague Martin. This evening, I will be…” He paused for effect. “Delivering some terrible news. And putting to rest the rumours about the events on Kingsparrow Island.”

And, like the spider that so carefully and so delicately spins its web, Martin began to spin his story, a meticulous melange of truth and lies, carried by a smooth, comforting tone and silvered by his tongue and. He started with their move to Kingsparrow, the newly-retrieved Emily Kaldwin the First in tow, and their plans to restore her to the throne. Martin’s lip curled with a smirk, though he kept it out of his voice as he continued: “They say that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

He went on to denounce his fellow conspirators, the Lord Regent – formerly the disgruntled, dishonourably-discharged Admiral Havelock – and the Prime Minister – Treavor Pendleton, whose older brothers had kept Lady Emily locked away in a brothel for six months. He lamented that it quickly became clear both Havelock and Pendleton lost sight of their loyalist cause, and sought only to take as much as their newfound positions could grant them.

“Things became increasingly tense. There were regular accusations of corruption, betrayal. Very quickly, our group splintered. We took up arms against one another. Suspecting as I did that it would not end well, and I knew I had a responsibility to my sovereign, to the Abbey, and to the Empire, I began plotting a coup.”

Again, he paused, as though he could see the shocked faces of his audience, huddled together like rats beneath the loudspeakers that hung over the filthy city streets.

“I did not make that decision lightly but I was fearful – _truly_ fearful – for the security of the Empress and for the future of the Isles.”

He continued,  narrating how he had rallied his men and moved against his fellow loyalists. But, Martin lamented, they seemed to know that their time had come: Pendleton shot himself, Martin said, and Havelock had thrown himself from the top of the lighthouse. “The sins of these men,” Martin intoned gravely, “must surely have weighed heavily on their souls.”

Now, Martin glanced at the pages under his fingers. He picked out Emily Kaldwin’s name amongst his neat, precise script. He said that, above all, his main concern had been finding the Empress and returning her to Dunwall. Within the walls of the Abbey, she would have been safe. But neither he nor his men could find her anywhere in the lighthouse. Instead, Martin said, they found Corvo.

“I saw Corvo Attano on the evening he murdered High Overseer Campbell. The man had been touched – _corrupted_. I saw the mark on his hand, I saw the bone charms he wore, I saw him use the gift of black magic to infiltrate the Abbey and slaughter dozens of my fellow brothers. He had used that same black magic to travel to Kingsparrow Island, to gain access to the lighthouse, to seek out Emily Kaldwin and take her.

“I asked him where Emily was. I told him there was no chance of escape – not this time. And he told me that Emily was dead.”

Martin paused, imagining the horrified screams, the contorted expressions of despair on the citizens’ faces. He felt a violently delighted tremor pass through him as he leant to the microphone again.

“I killed Corvo Attano that night. I could not fathom that he would escape, not with the blood of _two_ Empresses on his hands.”

Martin was confident that Corvo would not return to Dunwall, not now. There was nothing for him except the ghosts of his failures. Now, he signalled for the remainder of his speech to be recorded so that it could be broadcast three times a day to the fearful citizens.

“In the days that followed his escape from Coldridge prison Corvo Attano acted as an agent of the Outsider, bringing Dunwall to the precipice of absolute chaos in a bid for _revenge_ against those who sought to bring him to justice for his crimes against the Empire. And whilst justice was brought – far too late and at far too great a price – the influence of the Outsider still lingers in Dunwall.

“I used to believe – as I know a lot of you do – that tales of the Outsider were simply that: _tales_. Children’s stories about mischievous monsters with black eyes. But I have seen the Outsider. He has appeared to me, spoken to me; I’ve seen him work through Corvo, exuding his evil influence for nothing but his own perverse pleasure. He is no mere child’s story.

“The Outsider killed Emily Kaldwin.

“The Outsider murdered your sovereign, Dunwall, and now he _laughs_ at your pain. We have been far too lenient, far too trusting, and have given him space to root himself deeply in our lives. Only when we unite, underneath the guidance of the Abbey of the Everyman, which seeks day and night to eradicate the Outsider’s cruelty and send it howling back to the Void, will we be free.”

Martin leant back from the microphone, switched it off, and reached for his wine. His mouth curled like a sickle as it closed around the fine glass lip of his goblet.

* * *

In the days that followed Teague Martin’s speech, the Abbey was overwhelmed with Dunwall’s remaining citizens crowding themselves into the marbled halls to listen to the daily sermons and give what money they could in offering. They were all unconditionally, unquestionably frightened of the Outsider. Many prayed that the soul of Emily Kaldwin would safely merge with the cosmos and that she would be reunited with her mother; others prayed that Corvo Attano would never find rest.

Martin delivered his own sermons, though he spoke less of what protection the Abbey could offer from the Outsider and more of how, with the Imperial court in turmoil and unable to make sense of the line of succession, the Office of the Overseer would be filling the leadership vacuum as best it could:

“I wear this red coat that sets me apart from my brothers and I sit in the highest office that this institution offers, but I am not above your fear. I am not above the safety of this city and its spiritual security. The events of Kingsparrow Island haunt me, as I’m sure they haunt you,” Martin boomed from the pulpit. “Though we mourn, we cannot rest. Be vigilant. Be discerning. The Overseers roam the streets but they are not in your homes, your businesses, your _hearts_. These places are where the Outsider will bury himself deep and spread like an insidious cancer which we cannot see unless we know to look for it.”

Within days, Dunwall began to eat itself. Paranoia ran through the streets in a miasmic flood. Husband turned on wife, mother turned on child, servant turned on master, each accusing the other of working with the Outsider to betray Dunwall, the memory of the Empress, and High Overseer Teague Martin. Denouncements were as high as Martin could recall. His men worked tirelessly to drag citizens from their homes, to seize properties, assets, evidence. Sometimes, all they found were bodies but, when they were fast enough, the cells beneath the Abbey that reeked of old blood were quickly filled up.

The Abbey’s coffers grew fat. People gave what they could – and sometimes, what they couldn’t afford. Oftentimes, jewellery, heirlooms, paintings, deeds to noble homes were foisted upon Martin by devotees with large, wet eyes and mouths that begged in hushed whispers for help. Martin attended to them with the patience of a bedside nurse, holding their hands, letting them kiss at his gloved knuckles. He promised nothing and everything with his serene smile and his voice edged with ice.

The Abbey sprawled, moving into the smaller cities across Gristol, sending envoys across the sea to the other isles. Their numbers rapidly swelled and, when Martin regularly inspected the Overseers, formidable in their blue wool coats and impassive bronze masks, he could not help the arrogant slant of his lips, sharp and thin like the blade of a knife.

He kept some whalebone artefacts for his own personal inspection, locking them away in the trophy cabinet inside Campbell’s secret room. He held the runes and charms in his bare hands, tracing the delicate striations and carved symbols with the tips of his fingers. Once, whilst he reclined and studied the confiscated artefacts, the air grew cold and heavy and Martin had the feeling that he was not alone; he spoke to the empty room, his voice firm, assured, hard: “I will destroy you.”

The Outsider made no reply.

* * *

Beneath the Abbey was a network of sewers that drained away stormwater, effluent, dead hounds and men alike into the Wrenhaven. After Teague Martin had assumed the Abbey’s highest office, he had a section of the sewers sealed off, creating half a dozen small cells where particularly belligerent prisoners were kept and tortured.

Sometimes, Martin ordered that the sluices be opened and only a few inches of stagnant water that had run in off the streets be allowed into the dark cells, just to scare some into confession. Sometimes the water ran in for days at a time, a steady, almost imperceptible trickle that played with the prisoners’ perceptions of time and made them crazy. Others, though, were drowned entirely in a gushing torrent and only after Martin decided he was satisfied were the cells opened and drained, and the bloated corpses were allowed to wash into the curve of the river that hugged the back yard where the bunkhouses were, to be picked apart by hagfish.

Whenever Martin was feeling reflective, he would stand in the street just outside the Office of the Overseer and pace between the barred drains that were set in the cobblestones at regular intervals. If he listened closely enough, he could hear the prisoners begging. They begged for his mercy, for relief, for the chance to confess.

Sometimes they begged for the Outsider to save them.

Standing at the drains, his hands folded neatly behind his back, a faint smirk playing at his lips, Martin would lower his voice to a hiss and say, “Nothing is going to save you. I have no mercy, no pity, for you. I won’t hear your confessions. You are going to die and the Outsider will _watch_.”

He often fantasized about keeping Corvo in one of those cells, but the man had disappeared. Martin initially considered that Corvo had perhaps been scared off after the confrontation on Kingsparrow Island; and Martin had told the entire city – and the news had probably spread across the isles – that he himself had killed Corvo. The lie was not weak; he had spent hours meditating on it, its consequences. It was, he had concluded, perfect. And yet, Martin now found himself thinking of Corvo as a loose end that needed to be tied up.

The question that kept him up, pacing his bedchamber most nights, rose again in his mind like a wisp of sharp smoke: which was more powerful, the knife or the tongue? It was a question that he had sought to answer for several years now and, no matter how many men he killed or how many silvered lies he told, he was no closer to an answer.

 _Until now_.

His tongue had earned him his position as High Overseer; his knife would ensure its security.

* * *

Rudshore was a carcass, bloated with death, blown wide beneath the weight of its own decay for scavengers to take what they could. What buildings remained standing rose to blot out the bright, white sunlight; everything else was crumbling ruins. The air was still and reeking. The railcar that had ferried the plague dead from the inner city had long since stopped running, but the bodies continued to pile up, huddled in dank apartment buildings to try and escape the floodwaters or crowded at the electrified gates which kept them separated from the rest of the city.

Martin ordered a search of the Flooded District for Corvo Attano after many hours of close consultation with his most trusted men. Campbell had once scoured the area for the assassin Daud and his Whalers, with disastrous results; not a single Overseer survived. Martin would be considerably more meticulous, precise, relentless. He told his men to interrogate anyone they found, and to burn any bodies to prevent the spread of disease. Every single apartment was to be sealed after it was cleared. The trident of the Abbey was emblazoned in bright red paint across doors and walls. It stood out like a fresh wound against the muted tones of rot and death that colored the Flooded District.

Daud’s base of operations was the old Chamber of Commerce building, which had been abandoned at the first sign of the levees breaking. The clerks hadn’t even bothered emptying their desks. Dilapidated, surrounded by rotting rivers filled with bobbing corpses, Martin knew that it was the only place Corvo would seek shelter. Whilst several squads of Warfare Overseers scoured every last inch of the district, Martin took a group of elite Overseers to Central Rudshore.

A white-stone effigy of Jessamine Kaldwin face, her body long and stretched towards the bright, empty sky, looked down upon them with sightless eyes as they marched through knee-high floodwater. Buildings loomed over them, their floors and ceilings swollen with stagnant water, buckling, threatening to collapse. Except for the rats, there were no signs of life. Corvo had left a messy slew of corpses in his wake, Weepers and Whalers alike. Their bodies were already beginning to bloat and fall apart in the water.

Martin and his Overseers climbed through the bowels of the Chamber of Commerce. Much of the floors had rotted away, leaving gaping holes that tunnelled right through to the uppermost levels. The ghosts of another life lay scattered around them, forgotten in panic and fear: hundreds of books, their pages ruined; ink wells filled with black dust; crumbling ledgers and files for the management of great fortunes. As they neared the top of the building, Martin signalled for Holger’s devices to be activated. The droning music was slow, deep, throbbing inside Martin’s molars; it rattled the grimy glass windowpanes through which the skeletons of adjoining buildings could be seen.

They must have been inside the archives. Shelving crowded them, blocking out what light streamed in through the foggy windows. Martin moved slowly, his gaze sweeping across shadowed corners and walls peeling with cracked paint. They found pouches of coin, clumps of arrow bolts, bug-eyed breathing masks staring up at them like severed heads. The faint dusty smell of parchment hung in the air in a thin cloud, reminding Martin of the archives back at Holger Square. He also felt the weak lingering tickle of black magic, though it was heavily diluted by the song streaming from Holger’s device.

“The Whalers are all dead,” one Overseer remarked.

“Not all of them. I suspect after Daud’s death, many abandoned this place. They won’t escape us,” Martin intoned darkly. “We will excise them each as if they were gangrenous limbs.”

They came to one large office, heavily glassed-in and filled with brilliant daylight where the roof had all but collapsed. Martin signalled for his men to cover each set of double doors; the droning thrum from the music boxes beat against the walls of the office.

Corvo Attano stood in the centre of the floor, amongst a swirl of old brown smears of blood; his body was very still, his shoulders hunched. Beneath the lank dark hair that hung around his face, Martin saw the brassy glimmer of his mask. In his right hand, Corvo held his blade, a long, thin, precise extension of his arm; his left hand hung clenched at his side.

Martin reached for his own sabre, drawing it and holding it at the ready. His fingers curled tightly around its hilt. “Corvo Attano,” he bellowed, moving into the large office, flanked on either side by Overseers bearing Holger’s device, “in the name of the Office of the Overseer, you are under arrest for the murders of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and her daughter, Emily Kaldwin the First. Surrender your arms at once.”

Corvo lifted his head. The eyes of his mask were like two hollow pits.

Martin took several steps towards Corvo. “You _idiot_ ,” he hissed, smirking. “You should have left this city. Run off back to Serkonos. Instead, you’ve been living _here_. A rat king returning to its nest.”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Corvo growled. “I’ve been listening to the loudspeakers–you don’t scare me.”

“You’re not scared?” Martin asked, his voice tinged with false surprise. His smirk widened. “Good. I enjoy breaking your type.” He lunged, his sabre stretched forward, ready to pierce Corvo right through his heart–

Corvo leapt backwards with inhuman deftness; the air around him shimmered white-hot. He lifted his left hand, fingers outstretched, as if reaching for Martin. Martin felt himself dragged forward under a great force and only just managed to get his sabre up before Corvo’s blade came down to his throat. Steel met steel with a chilling clash. They pushed at one another, their boots sliding on the worn floorboards.

Corvo disappeared again, blinking across the room. Martin spun on his heel, his sabre raised defensively. “You’re not going to escape again,” he warned. “I _will_ drag you back to Holger in chains and your last hours on this earth are going to be so unbearable that you will _beg_ me for death.”

At some unspoken cue, the Overseers bearing Holger’s devices closed in around Corvo. He visibly stiffened, hunched, trembled. He dropped to one knee. He dropped his sword with a clatter. One of his hands clawed at his throat as he struggled for breath; the other tore up splinters from the floorboards with its fingernails. “You’re nothing without your precious mark,” Martin spat, moving towards Corvo. “Just that _useless_ excuse for a bodyguard who couldn’t protect _one woman_. You’re laughable; no one will mourn you.”

Corvo fought to stand, his mask leering at Martin, mismatched eyes and a crooked rictus of a mouth.

“Surrender,” Martin demanded, levelling his blade at Corvo’s throat.

Corvo cursed bitterly and threw himself at Martin. The pair stumbled, torsos pressed together, limbs entangled. Martin shoved Corvo away, panting, his skin glistening with sweat; his hair fell across his brow. He snarled, readying himself, but Corvo fell again, his chest shuddering. The Overseers crowded around him.

“Hold out your left arm, Corvo,” Martin breathed, reaching up with one gloved hand to push his hair back.

Corvo didn’t.

Martin lashed out, seized Corvo’s arm by the wrist, and dragged it out straight.

Beneath the sleeve of his coat, Corvo’s arm was like a rope, thickly corded with twisting tendons and lean muscle; it trembled with the physical effort he made against Martin’s vise-like grip. Martin’s eyes glittered like two pieces of hard ice as he raised his sabre over his head and brought it down against Corvo’s arm, cleanly severing his marked hand.

Blood streamed from the stump of Corvo’s forearm. He threw back his head and shrieked.

Martin bent and retrieved the severed hand. “Still warm,” he remarked. “I look forward to keeping it in my trophy cabinet.” And he sheathed his blade and ordered his men to prepare Corvo for transportation to Holger Square. “Make sure he doesn’t bleed out,” he added coldly. “I would so hate for the cell I’ve prepared to go to waste.”

* * *

The stump of Corvo’s left wrist was crudely cauterized and left unwrapped, exposed to Martin’s tools of torture. In the first few hours since the return to Holger, Corvo had been stripped naked and strapped down into the interrogation chair. A single bright light shone down in his eyes; he ducked his head like a skittish animal. Martin and two other Overseers were in the room with him.

“I should have done this when you’d first given me Campbell’s journal,” Martin remarked, pacing a slow circle around Corvo. “We didn’t need you after that. Not _really_. We were just _lazy_.” In his hand, Martin held a small sledgehammer. He hefted it now, as he came to rest on Corvo’s left side. Corvo’s arm strained for escape but the cuff clamped over his forearm was far too tight.

Martin’s eyes glittered as he raised the hammer over his head and brought it down on the stump of Corvo’s wrist in one swift stroke. Beneath Corvo’s howls, Martin heard the distinctive crack of bone.

After the interrogation, Martin had Corvo put into the stocks in the back yard. Corvo did not fight; he had lost a lot of blood. His head hung between his shoulders, straining, trembling. The Overseers were not allowed to interact with him, to talk to him or touch him. Those that did their rounds in the yard passed him in silence; the hounds at their heels growled at him.

Martin left Corvo out in the yard all night and well into the next day, when the sun burned as a blinding halo in the sky. “You’re going to die here,” Martin said, seizing Corvo’s chin between thumb and forefinger. “How does that feel? Are you still not scared of me?”

Corvo grimaced, baring his teeth; they were smeared with blood. His eyes were unfocused, flat, his pupils mere pinpricks of ink. His skin was slick with sweat and a sour smell clung to him. He trembled violently and the stocks rattled. Martin had him dragged to the interrogation cell again, to be beaten and burned and to have the fingernails of his remaining hand pulled out with a pair of rusty pliers. Corvo did not reveal anything about where Emily was – alive or dead. In fact, he did not speak at all; the only noises he made were screams.

It occurred to Martin, after he’d had Corvo chained up in one of the sewer cells, that Corvo had endured all of this before. He knew how to shut himself away, to separate his mind and his body. He knew how to survive relentless and regular torture. Very quickly, the sense of sport diminished. Martin had Corvo’s tongue cut out after it became very clear that, despite everything, Corvo would remain silent.

At night, sealed inside his office, Martin often wondered if the Outsider was with Corvo, soothing his wounds and whispering words of comfort.

Corvo died after four days and Martin felt a great sense of relief and completion wash over him like a wave washing over the beach. A cursory inspection of the corpse told Martin that it wasn’t the torture that had killed the Lord Protector, but an infection that had set in where his hand had been cut off. It was the only logical explanation: Corvo’s body was covered in an angry red rash, acid-yellow pus oozed from almost every orifice, and he stank of something pungent and inherently dark.

Martin ordered Corvo to be left out for the rats and, though they swirled around him, drawn to the promise of fresh flesh to feast on, they did not touch him. They huddled together, squeaking softly, wary. Martin later ordered that Corvo be cut up and fed to the hounds though, like the rats, they refused the offering; one of the creatures, young and inexperienced, ate from the trough filled with greying chunks of meat, and it dropped dead within the hour.

In the end, Martin simply dumped what was left of Corvo into the sewers.

* * *

Martin’s head was heavy. He’d had too much wine. He reclined inside Campbell’s secret chamber, soft violin music coming through a music player and mellow yellow light flickering against the walls from several thick wax candles. He had sealed himself away in the private room for some time alone with his most favorite trophy, Corvo Attano’s marked hand. It sat atop a thick velvet cushion like a precious jewel.

He swept his gaze to the trophy cabinet standing against the wall, and saw Emily Kaldwin standing before the glassed-in box. He could not see her face but he knew, inherently, that it was Emily Kaldwin. She wore that white suit with fine white silk stockings – though it was all drenched with seawater – and a limp red ribbon in her hair, which hung, heavy and dripping, about her shoulders.

“I miss Corvo,” Emily said, and her voice sounded as though it were coming at him from a great distance, through howling wind and rain, from behind a sheet of water. She turned to him now, her face sullen. He saw how her eyes were as black as pitch from lid to lid, wide, gleaming.

He felt himself seized by something resembling fear.

“I miss Corvo and all that’s left of him is his hand,” Emily continued. Now, she started walking towards Martin. With each step, seawater splashed at her heels – and dripped towards the ceiling, leaving small trembling pools that hung near the light fixtures. As she came closer, Martin could see the deathly hue of her skin, a dusky purple. Her pupil-less eyes continued to unnerve him.

From within the trophy cabinet, Corvo’s hand jumped to life, slamming itself against the glass.

Martin was horrified but refused to be intimidated. “Using a little _girl_ to frighten me?” he sneered.

Emily paused, her little brow twisting with confusion. “I just want to see Corvo,” she whimpered. “ _I_ _miss him_.”

“The act is a little too saccharine for you.”

Emily’s expression froze before a slow, feline smirk curled her lips. _And here I thought you_ truly _cared about the young Empress_ , the Outsider said, speaking through Emily. Its cold voice seemed to come from within Martin’s own head.

“She’s dead,” Martin said simply. “And seeing her puppeted by _you_ won’t play to my sympathies.”

Emily cocked her head like a little bird. _I’m not puppeting her. She truly does miss Corvo and I promised her I would let her see him again._

Martin steepled his fingers, his eyes narrowing to icy slivers. “You know, taking her did _wonders_ for me. How curious.”

_You had always intended to use Emily Kaldwin for your own selfish ends._

“Alive, yes.”

 _Dead little girls are far easier to control._ The Outsider spread Emily’s hands as though she were bearing a platter. _You’re welcome_.

Martin said nothing in reply.

_Yet again, Teague Martin, you continue to surprise me. I do believe that the whole city would kiss your filthy boots if you asked it of them. And now, I wonder, what you’ll do? Where does a man go once he’s reached the top?_

“Are you concerned for me? Worried that I’ll have _restless hands_ , perhaps?”

 _Not at all,_ the Outsider said, and Emily smiled with a mouthful of sharp little teeth. _I’m far more interested in whether or not you’ll devote the rest of your life to eradicating me. I know what you’ve preached from the safety of your office but I can see inside your heart, Teague Martin. Without me, you’ll have nothing to strive against. No one to impress._

_I’ll be watching you, Teague Martin, so be sure to put on an interesting show for me._

Emily melted away in a misty haze of purple smoke, and Martin was alone again. When he went to the trophy cabinet, he saw that Corvo’s hand was gone.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Крысиный король](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5102243) by [Gianeya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gianeya/pseuds/Gianeya)




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